


Who says you can't go home?

by neversaydie



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Celebrity, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Cocaine, Drugged Sex, Drunk Sex, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fame, Heavy Drinking, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Recreational Drug Use, Rock Stars, Rough Sex, Self-Harm, Sex Drugs and Rock and Roll, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2018-04-14
Packaged: 2018-05-28 10:46:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6325972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neversaydie/pseuds/neversaydie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I think I'm in love with you."</p><p>The hotel room smells like post-show sweat and sex, smoke twisting around the plush interior to collect at the ceiling like an omen. Bucky's leather jacket and Steve's pants are tossed on a chair, the rest of their clothes strewn across the carpet in careless heaps where they'd peeled them off still sticky from the stage and half-deaf from their own music. The hoarse words break the comfortable silence that had descended in the afterglow, and Bucky regrets letting them escape almost immediately as the calm atmosphere shatters under their weight. </p><p>"No." Steve groans, rolling over and stubbing his cigarette out on the nightstand. Bucky reaches out for him like he always does, but Steve is pulling away and getting out of bed before fingertips can brush his skin. "Don't say that."</p><p>[in which Bucky falls in love with his best friend, which is Against The Rules in their contract, and everything gets turned upside down]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I'm not in love

"I think I'm in love with you."

The hotel room smells like post-show sweat and sex, smoke twisting around the plush interior to collect at the ceiling like an omen. Bucky's leather jacket and Steve's pants are tossed on a chair, the rest of their clothes strewn across the carpet in careless heaps where they'd peeled them off still sticky from the stage and half-deaf from their own music. The hoarse words break the comfortable silence that had descended in the afterglow, and Bucky regrets letting them escape almost immediately as the calm atmosphere shatters under their weight.

"No." Steve groans, rolling over and stubbing his cigarette out on the nightstand. Not the ashtray, the actual nightstand. Because he's a pig and he's too used to people cleaning up after him by now. Bucky reaches out for him like he always does, but Steve is pulling away and getting out of bed before fingertips can brush his skin. "Don't say that."

He crosses the room unashamedly naked, pale back marked up with angry red scratches from Bucky's fingernails and bruised on one shoulder where he'd tripped over his own mic cable in the dark a few weeks back. The half-empty bottle of Jack is still on the dresser, left where they'd abandoned it the second they stumbled through the door and nobody was around to spy on them anymore. Steve grabs it and untwists the cap, taking thirsty gulps like Bucky hasn't seen since he ended up in the hospital back in Japan. That similarity makes him regret _everything_.

"Steve…"

"You can't… Fuck, don't do that." He has the decency to walk back over and offer Bucky the bottle, at least. It's piss poor compensation for breaking his fucking heart, but it's better than nothing. Bucky feels like he's thankful for a lot of scraps, lately. "We can't. You know we can't."

Bucky doesn't hesitate to take the bottle and swig from it, suddenly struck by the memory of the first time he and Steve ever made money busking back in New York. They blew it on whiskey immediately, because they wanted to be authentic cool rock stars, and promptly choked and spluttered on their first juvenile, burning sips. The image makes him blink away wetness in his eyes that he tells himself is all down to the liquor, because he's not going to cry about this. He knew this was going to happen.  

"But it's true." He says, quietly, and the pain that creases Steve's expression tells him that he's probably not the only one who's been sitting on his feelings here. He never could handle seeing Steve sad though, so he shoves the confessions down where he can ignore them until he's alone and changes the subject. "You got anything left?"

If this can't be love then he'll have to take what he can get. And if that's getting high and fucking then it's better than nothing at all.

"Coke." Steve looks relieved that he's dropped the subject and Bucky's not surprised. His friend has learned to be calculating over the last few years, making choices for their careers with his head, not his heart. The kid who used to get arrested for protesting injustice is long gone at this point. Whatever he might feel for Bucky in return will have been weighed for pros and cons and placed firmly in the cons column, never to be brought back out. "Want some?"

"Yeah." Bucky rubs sweaty hands over his face and closes his eyes for a second. He's reaching that point of touring where the prospect of sobering up is scary because he's not sure what'll happen if he does, and the last thing he wants is to get the shakes and give Steve an excuse to stop being near him. "Cut me a line? I gotta take a piss."

Safely in the bathroom, locked away from making Steve worry, Bucky bites his hand and squeezes his eyes shut and tries not to make a sound as he gets himself back under control. Because Steve is right, being a couple would just cause a shitstorm and make the label more restrictive about their movements than they already are. Not to mention that Steve's entire PR relationship would be blown wide open and probably wreck Peggy's career on top of their own. And it's not like they could be together openly without hurting the band's sales, especially when China is their second-biggest market and Middle American teenagers make up most of their demographic. They couldn't do that to Sam and Nat, can't put their bandmates' careers in jeopardy just because Bucky can't get a hold of himself.

Reasonably, rationally, Bucky tells himself all that. Then he digs in his washbag sitting on the sink to find something to distract himself from the pain of all those rational, reasonable things keeping him from being with the love of his life. He'd been kidding himself when he thought he could screw around with his best friend and not end up falling for him, because Steve has always been the brightest thing in Bucky's orbit and Bucky's always fallen hard and fast. He was probably a little bit in love with his best friend even before they started hooking up, so this is really something he's done to himself. All his own stupid fault.  

The crestfallen look on Steve's face when Bucky comes back into the room and he sees the angry red marks on his thighs, where he's dragged a razor across his skin just hard enough to scratch and calm him down which means it _doesn't count_ as cutting so nobody can get mad at him about it, makes Bucky wish he'd thought to grab some pants. Steve knows him too well to believe any bullshit excuse, and the last thing he wanted to do was upset him again. Bucky needs to grow some better coping skills because he can't afford not to cope, not when everyone is relying on him to keep it together.

"Buck…" Steve has that slightly warning tone in his voice, the same way Bucky used to talk to him when he was about to do something reckless, back when his list of reckless activities was longer than 'sending an unauthorised tweet'. Bucky ignores him completely and grabs the straw without even meeting his eyes.  

"Shut up. You're not my boyfriend." He bends over the nightstand to snort the lines, straightening up to sniff the sour drip hard down his throat. Everything feels like head rush, like falling from a great height. He never wants to meet the ground.

The buzz hits quickly and he sits down heavily on the bed as Steve watches him with an unreadable expression. Bucky reaches for the whiskey bottle again to wash the taste away, but Steve grabs his wrist roughly before he can get a hand on it.

"Hey—"

Then he's being kissed, pushed back onto the bed by Steve's bulk, and the rapidly-fading lucid part of his brain thinks this is a pretty insensitive way to turn someone down. But then he's taken over by the feel of Steve against him, skin against skin and heartbeat against heartbeat, and rational thought seems like far too much effort all of a sudden.

Thinking will only twist the knife, that's what Bucky's learned over the rollercoaster years since the band blew up out of nowhere, so he's decided it's better not to think and to just _do_. He never expected that mantra would have to apply to Steve, but this is what his life is now.

They stay like that for a long time, kissing slow and languid (and loving, Bucky carefully doesn't allow himself to think) like they've got all the time in the world and shouldn't realistically have been asleep hours ago before their six a.m. bus call. This is Steve speaking with his body when he won't let the words come out, and that makes Bucky suddenly furious. Fingers carding gently through his hair is the last straw, the point he can't take it and feels his heart break just a little bit more.

"Don't." He shoves Steve away in a flash of anger at the unfairness of what's happening. How dare Steve touch him like he loves him now? "You don't get to do that."

"You know I would." Lips swollen raw and pupils blown in the dim light, Steve looks ethereal and Bucky adores him and wants to punch him all at once. "If we could. You know I—"

"Shut up." Bucky tugs him down again and crushes their lips together to stop Steve talking, because if he actually says it out loud then Bucky's not going to be able to handle it. If it's just his fault that he caught unreturned feelings then he can deal, but the idea that Steve loves him back when they can't be together is too much to bear.

The tenderness is gone now, and Bucky lets his hurt lead until Steve gets with the programme and manhandles him onto his stomach. This is better, rough sex and not looking at Steve is better even if he's sore from the first round, because tenderness might shatter Bucky when he's already fractured tonight. And he can't go to pieces, because then who would be there to pick up Steve's?

"You good?" It's a cursory question as he shoves two lubed fingers into Bucky, just to make sure he's ready for round two. Steve gets rough when he's on something, uncontrolled and unaware of his own strength, and that's what Bucky needs to lose himself in now.

"Just fuck me." He grunts, dropping his head to the mattress when Steve pushes in careless and almost dry. "With lube, moron. Don't break my ass."

"Bossy little shit." Steve complies despite his grumbling, apparently using the last of his self-control to lube up before he goes to town on Bucky without even working up to it first. This is back to normal for them, ignoring reality for a few stolen moments together that in the morning they'll pretend never happened.  

With a hand grabbing the back of his neck and holding him down, being worked over roughly like some kind of sex toy, Bucky can lose himself. He focuses on the burn of being pounded into, the bruising grip on his neck that means he'll wear his hair down tomorrow and some kid will still get pictures the internet will speculate over for weeks. Part of him wants Steve to mark him up, wants there to be proof on his body that no amount of PR can spin away from him. That they were _here_ and this _happened_ and it _mattered_.

It takes Steve a long time to come, senses heightened but scattered by the drugs, and by the time he does Bucky is so sore he's pretty certain he's not sitting down tomorrow. He's managed to lose his head enough to get hard and desperate, though, and Steve jerks him off with sloppy strokes until he's spurting all over the sheets. Then the hot weight holding him up is gone, water running in the bathroom, pillow against his cheek, all like a series of disconnected moments that Bucky can't piece into a timeline. He wonders vaguely if the label pays off hotel maids, if their hook-ups have necessitated NDAs about jizzy sheets, and the idea makes him giggle as he collapses onto his side. Maybe he's higher than he thought.

"You flying there?" Steve hears him giggle and emerges from the bathroom with a smile, tossing a towel Bucky's way and catching him in the face. "That stuff's good shit."

"Better be, since I think you broke my fucking ass on it." Bucky doesn't even bother cleaning up with his jelly limbs, just puts the towel over the wet spot on the bed because he's too wiped out to willingly move. It's not until he feels a trickle between his legs that he raises his head to glare at Steve. "Did you use a condom?"

"Nah. I just got tested, you're good." Steve throws himself down on the other side of the mattress, leaning down to kiss Bucky way too gently (how fucking _dare he_ ) before he reaches past him for the whiskey again.

"If I had the energy to punch you." Bucky snatches the whiskey away with a shaky, exhausted hand and drinks it himself, because he figures he deserves that after he's been unexpectedly rawed. "Warn a guy, will you?"

"Sorry. I got caught up." Steve sticks two cigarettes between his lips and lights them, putting one in his friend's mouth before he settles down and pulls Bucky over to curl up on his chest. The last thing Bucky should want is to be cuddled right now, he knows it'll only make things harder in the long run, but it's difficult to care about the long run when the man he loves is nuzzling his hair and breathing him in like he's oxygen.

It's almost easy to smoke and close his eyes, smush his cheek into Steve's chest and listen to his heartbeat and his breathing with the slight wheeze leftover from childhood he still gets when he smokes too many cigarettes (which is always, these days). Bucky almost lulls himself with it, can nearly pretend they're back in their shitty apartment sharing a bed to save on the heat because Bucky's unemployed and the band haven't booked a gig in weeks. It's the most peaceful and settled he's felt in months, a stillness he rarely gets anymore because they never stop moving. Being curled up with Steve feels like home.

And then Steve speaks, and Bucky thinks he might never get home again.

"Coulson called me this afternoon." Bringing up their A and R man is never good, especially not in bed, and Bucky feels his sore muscles lock up all over again as he braces himself for impact. "They want me and Peggy to get married."

Just like that, it only takes a few words to break Bucky's good mood down to kindling. He opens his eyes and stares at the wall opposite them, doesn't dare raise his head and look at Steve in case that makes everything real. The ringing in his ears says the ground is coming up to meet him again, and he needs a line or a drink or something to numb him out to the swooping pain in his chest.

"You'll be my best man, right?" Steve is saying from somewhere above him, thumb stroking over Bucky's bicep like everything is normal. "They've got some kinda magazine deal for the pictures, so it's gotta be the whole nine yards."

"Of course." Bucky hears himself reply, blank and measured because he has to keep it together, and Steve presses a kiss to his hair in thanks. Like this is normal. Like there's nothing weird about asking a guy who's in love with you to be best man at your staged wedding. Maybe there isn't, not with the way their lives have turned out.

When Bucky had imagined standing at the altar with the love of his life, this wasn't exactly what he'd been picturing.

He rolls over to stub out his cigarette when he feels heat on his fingers, stays on his side and stares at the door and wonders if he should just leave. Not just the hotel room, not just the tour, but the band and probably the planet if he has his way. Steve spoons up behind him and buries his face in Bucky's hair, but Bucky's eyes stay open and dry even as snores start slowly huffing out against his skin. He thought he'd hit bottom to be desperate enough to tell Steve he loves him, to potentially fuck up all their careers because he couldn't hold it in anymore, but he had no idea how low he could really sink until this terrible moment.

Fuck. How did they get into this mess?


	2. Wrapping up Notes

Hi guys! I'm clearing house on old unfinished fics and giving them some closure - finishing them in note form, giving some insight into the writing process, and giving information about how they didn't get finished in the hope it might be useful to other writers.    
  


**Author's Notes**

So the premise of this fic was basically 'band thinks they're the Libertines, sign a contract, get marketed as One Direction', in short. I have a lot of this in notebooks somewhere, lots of stuff leftover from my bandom days about long bus journeys and sneaking around and being blackmailed with compromising pictures and bearding relationships and such. 

Steve and Peggy were supposed to be in a mutually consensual bearding relationship, while Bucky was sad and gay and ended up leaving the band to live in the woods and make weird experimental solo music. 

I enjoyed writing a more selfish and harsher Steve, and the fic was basically going to go back in time after the first chapter and show S/B's progression from being naive sweet optimists to the jaded fuckers they'd become. 

I'm sad to see this one go, it was such a nice angsty fun verse to play with, but the notes and scenes I have are so scattered and not typed up - I don't think I even have some of the notebooks anymore - that it's better to call time and maybe come back to it in another format at some point. 

I'll be answering any questions about the story etc in the comments. Thanks for reading!

Oh, and one thing I did have typed up was a blowjob… so have that for your trouble: 

  
  


"Are you ready or—" Steve stops in his tracks when he sees Bucky sitting in front of the dressing room mirror. His hair is styled back into a messy bun, which isn't unusual, but the eyeliner smudged around his eyes is  _ very  _ new. "Wow."

"Do I look ridiculous?" Bucky meets his eyes in the mirror with a slightly sheepish look on his face, like he hasn't made his mind up about the changes yet.

They've all been carefully styled for this photoshoot, their first since they signed to Shield, and Steve is fully decked out like some kind of clean-cut hipster-jock wet dream come to life. Bucky is being pitched a little more classic rock, a little grungier because he's being set up as 'the mysterious one' (and if the label reps think they're being subtle about establishing easily-marketed archetypes then they must be used to working with people who genuinely don't give a shit about what's going on around them), hence the kohl making his eyes pop bluer than Steve's ever seen.

It goes straight to his dick, predictably.

"No. You look… Wow." He stammers out inelegantly, suddenly flustered demeanour making Bucky grin a little. "You should've worn that years ago."

"Yeah? I don't look like I belong in an emo band?" Finally done fiddling with his hair, Bucky stands up and wow, his eyes are even more intense up close. "I think I kinda like it."

Steve manages to keep a hold of himself for all of five seconds before the sight of Bucky is too much to resist. His self-control goes out the window as he grabs Bucky's leather jacket and hauls him into a bruising kiss, his bandmate melting immediately into his embrace like he's been waiting for this all day.

"I think you kinda like it too." Bucky smirks when Steve finally comes up for air, eyes sparkling with mirth at Steve's very obvious predicament. His boner isn't exactly subtle and he sprang it over Bucky in  _ makeup _ , fuck. "You need some help there?"

"You're gonna be the death of me." Steve shakes his head disbelievingly and his eyes flutter closed as Bucky starts to rub him through his jeans. "We've gotta be somewhere."

"They're trying to persuade Nat to get her tits out, we've got time before she commits murder." It's a compelling argument in the context of Bucky backing him up against the dressing tables, sending the metal edge into the mirror behind with a quiet  _ clack _ . It's almost impossible for Steve  _ not  _ to spread his legs and let Bucky between them, let him press close as they kiss again and the relentless rubbing never stops.

"Buck, we don't…" His token protests trail off into a surprised moan when Bucky sinks to his knees between his legs. "Jesus. There's people around."

"Doesn't sound like you're telling me to stop." Bucky grins up at him through his eyelashes, all dark eyes and lips and that eyeliner.  _ Fuck _ . He unbuttons Steve's jeans without interference and Steve's pretty sure he's never been as hard in his  _ life  _ as he is when Bucky pulls his cock out and licks his lips. "You're just gonna have to be quiet."

"You son of a…" He trails off again and tips his head back as Bucky takes the head into his mouth without preamble. "Oh  _ fuck _ ."

"That's not quiet." Bucky tuts in mock disapproval as Steve whines when he pulls off. "You gonna behave? Or do I have to stop?"

"If you stop now I swear to fucking—" He has to bite his knuckle to stay quiet when Bucky relents and swallows him down in one long slide. He makes eye contact with Steve's dick in his mouth, smirking with his eyes through the strands of hair escaping his bun, and he knows exactly what he's doing when he hums low in his throat.

Steve grabs Bucky's hair with the hand that's not keeping his own desperate noises muffled, yanking hard because Bucky's being a fucking tease and he knows it. But Bucky just moans at the flash of pain  

and takes Steve in deeper, which doesn't help his predicament at all.

They don't have much time, not with the threat that anyone could walk into the dressing room right now and catch them, so Steve doesn't hesitate to get a firm grip on Bucky's hair and work him on his dick like a blow up doll. He's so worked up from the situation and the way Bucky looks like pure sin on his knees for him that he doesn't last. It's not long before he's coming down Bucky's throat so hard and fast that he sees stars.

"Shit man, your hair." Steve laughs breathlessly when he gets his brain together enough to actually form words. Bucky looks wrecked, lips swollen puffy, hair dishevelled, and generally the picture of someone who's been well-fucked. Definitely not the carefully groomed exterior the stylist had put together. "Oops."

"Yeah, you sound real broken up about it." Bucky rolls his eyes with a grin and pushes himself up on Steve's thighs, checking out the damage in the mirror behind him. He's obviously hard in his ridiculously tight pants, but he pushes Steve's hand away when he tries to get his fly open. "Owe me later, we've gotta run once I fix this."

"You were that hungry for my dick, huh?" Steve leers good-naturedly as he tucks himself back into his pants, snorting a laugh at Bucky's most withering look. He's busy shaking his hair out and fumbling with an elastic, so at least he doesn't give Steve a dead arm for his trouble.

"Told you, you  _ owe  _ me later." His voice is slightly gravelly now, no surprise. Bucky gives in and adjusts himself uncomfortably, and Steve can just tell he's getting pounded through the mattress with all that pent-up need as soon as they get home. "Go on. I'll be there in five once this thing goes away."

Unable to resist, Steve pauses before he leaves and tugs Bucky into another kiss by his collar, slow and filthy until he whimpers when they break apart. Bucky glares hard, starry-eyed and unconvincing from inches away. It's adorable.

"D'you understand how getting rid of a boner works, you asshole?" He shoves Steve away this time and points to the door. "Go. Get the hell out."

"Love you too, Barnes." Steve wiggles his fingers in a dainty little sarcastic wave (that he's definitely picked up from Bucky) before he ducks out of the dressing room and finally hurries to set.

Bucky sits down on the dressing table once he's alone, scrubbing the hells of his hands over his eyes and blowing out a long breath to try and get his heart rate under control. Great choice of words, Rogers, that doesn't make him feel like he's carrying around a guilty secret at all. It's not like he's told Steve he's starting to get feelings beyond 'I want to have your dick in me' for him, though, so he can't exactly complain that his friend is being insensitive. It's Bucky's issue, not his.

Once his inconvenient boner has  _ finally  _ died, Bucky takes a second to make sure he doesn't still look post-coital before he leaves. The eyeliner has smeared into a smudged mess, and Bucky chews on his bottom lip for a second before he grabs the black pencil the makeup artist left behind and adds more. Steve had liked it, more than liked it, and the masochistic part of Bucky wants to make sure Steve's eyes aren't on anyone else but  _ him _ today.

He hurries to the photoshoot before he can think about how pathetic he's acting about a guy who's supposed to just his fuckbuddy. He couldn't have known, at that point, that his budding crush was the least of his worries. His and Steve's both.


End file.
